Specifically in North America, and the Continental 48 States, other than the Sierra Nevada and Teton Ranges, what are some ranges that are growing upward? No volcanoes, since they can just as easily blow themselves up and out as grow upward.

Anyone know of any information that speculates on potential maximum elevation that the Sierra, Tetons, or other growing ranges could achieve?

I suppose one has to ponder the meaning of "grow." The change to earth-centered geoids has boosted the reported elevations of some mountains; some of that is "real," as plates in the lithosphere move relative to the rest of the earth.

I'm basically thinking of the ranges that have potential to reach 15,000', 16,000', 17,000' or more, some time in the future, maybe 10 million, years, maybe 4 million, or maybe never if glaciation carves them down. I once saw someone pose the question of "why only 14,000 feet" for the highest peaks in the lower 48. That of course only looks at a fairly narrow area (as do I), as there are higher mountains in Mexico and northern Canada and Alaska.

Still, Geologist must have studied the mountains in the 48 enough to have a list of theoretical heights that some of the younger ones, like the Sierra and Tetons, could reach. For example, the mechanism that cause the Sierra to uplift are probably well enough understood, the depth of the batholith of granite known to some specific degree, and the rate of non-glaciated (and therefore reasonably predictable) erosion established, so that if things continued as they have for the growth of the range over the last 1 million years, that they could work up an estimate for the height of the crest in another 1 million years.

Just thinking out loud, if you will. Interesting, too, because if climate patterns stayed roughly the same, Nevada might get a lot drier with the Sierra crest another few thousand feet higher.

Using the 1 millimeter/ year rate they are giving, over 1 million years, the Sierra could theoretically uplift 1000 meters, or about 3,000 feet. (0.001meters x 1,000,000=1,000meter). That assumes everything stays constant, and erosion might not factor into that. The uplift areas also seem to move around, with the southern part being the most active recently.

According to the above, the Sierra will eventually break off from the rest of the country and move out to sea, like Madagascar. So, maybe Nevada will be a wet place in 4 million years, despite the mountain growth.

surgent wrote:I wonder if any of the ranges or peaks in Virginia grew a little after their earthquake...

You pose a good question. You'd need some sort of subduction-type fault nearby. Perhaps some of the peaks in the Cascadia region are inching upward due to the big fault off the coast of WA/BC/AK.

My guess would be that they subsided a tiny bit and that the coastal plain east of the Spottsylvania Lineament might have inched up a bit. It was definitely weird as hell experiencing that - we're not in Cali-friggin-fornia.

Whitney was always listed at 14,997 feet and it has been listed at 14,505 (for some time now), Is this possibly the same thing or was Whitney's elevation adjusted because of better accuracy with new technology? Were Muir, Mallory and Russell found to have "new" elevations as well?

Marmaduke wrote:Whitney was always listed at 14,997 feet and it has been listed at 14,505 (for some time now), Is this possibly the same thing or was Whitney's elevation adjusted because of better accuracy with new technology? Were Muir, Mallory and Russell found to have "new" elevations as well?

The change in reported elevation was caused by the change to an earth-centered geoid for reference of the elevation. Whether it is "real" depends on your mindset. See discussion above.

What's an "earth centered geoid"? Presumably any reasonable way you choose to extrapolate the sea level isn't going to affect the answer very much...especially for something so close to the ocean. So while it might be a big part of the growth over the last 100 years, it's not going to be a big part of the growth over the next 10^6.